Something Lost
by DresdenGal
Summary: Part of him wanted to share and part of him wanted the memory for himself. But Sam had also pulled out the puppy-dog eyes and he had never been able to deny his brother anything for that long. It is 2009. Dean has returned from hell, but the apocolypse is still looming.


December 2009

Canton, IL

West side of town, in the woods behind Wallace Park, on the edge of VanWinkle Lake.

"Shit!" Sam's panicked voice mixed badly with the sound of Dean's shout as Dean flew off the waterfall damn where had been keeping their latest quarry occupied and landed in the shallow pool below. Sam's epithet was partly for Dean and partly for himself. The crude grave had taken too long to dig, the spirit's body protected by a half-century of tree roots. He'd spent more time chopping roots than digging soil. Now, ready to torch the remains, the light refused to work. Sam grumbled something about it always working for Dean as he flipped it up-side-down and then shook it a little. Just as he heard the spirit begin to laugh (which was not a joyful noise to behold on a cold night in the woods, especially from a being that had been killing off locals who had inadvertantly disturbed the man's resting place), the lighter relented and Sam threw it onto the salt-covered grave and watched it burn.

Even before the spirit fully disappeared, Sam turned to look for Dean. Sam's heart faltered for a second before it caught up with his legs, already scrambling down the embankment. Dean had landed on the rocks, his legs in water and his arm reaching for the sawed-off shotgun that had landed just out of reach. And he wasn't moving.

"Dean!" Sam ignored the whole concept of using rocks as stepping stones and barged through the water towards his brother. "Dean!"

Sam gently rolled Dean onto his back, checking for injuries. Dean's right shoulder had a large gash from the rocks and one on his forhead over his right eye. As Sam started probing his brother's ribs, noting bruising, Dean batted Sam's hands away and clearly stated, "Gihoffma." He tried to wriggle out of Sam's reach until Sam pinned him to the ground with a gentle push.

"I'm not on you Dean. Calm Down. Can you walk?"

"I think so."

"Good. I don't want to carry your heavy ass to the car." Sam swallowed bile as he remembered carrying Dean's body away from suburbia after the Hell Hounds' attack. "And I need to recover the grave."

"I'm okay, Sam." Dean held his gaze for a moment before gesturing for Sam to finish the job. Dean sat and stared up at the clouds covering the moon and let the changing patterns calm him. You could always change the pattern, look at things differently. But it was not a night for inner reflection, so he hollered, "Shit, Sammy, it's cold. Hurry up!"

A couple of hours later Sam sat on the edge of the bed, his hand enclosing his brother's. Normally Dean avoided this type of contact, but Dean was sleeping fitfully through nightmares again and it was the only comfort Dean would accept. Dean was unconsciously gripping his little brother's hand. Sam was simply thankful for the contact and even more thankful for the proof that Dean needed him and wanted him around, tangible proof of the beginning of forgiveness, even if it was a gesture Dean would never know about.

The sounds of birds stirring woke Sam. He let go of Dean's hand to shut the heavy motel drapes in hopes Dean would sleep a little longer. In the remaining sliver of light Sam studied his brother. The vertical shaft of light caught the older Winchester's eyes and the angry line of stitches that climbed into his disheveled hair. The light crossed his nose and lips set in a permanent scowl in his sleep, and followed the path of destruction down his bare chest and newly bruised ribs and highlighted the bandaged hand before plunging into to the tropical fauna-themed bedspread and the almost-healed twisted ankle beneath. Dean's newly stitched shoulder was in shadow, but Sam knew it was there. Dean looked both older and more tired as well as younger and innocent in his sleep. Sam watched the dust mites dance in the light for a moment before cleaning up.

To get to the first aid kit Sam had simply dumped Dean's pack onto his bed. Now, after the adrenaline rush he was faced with a mess of items lying on the bedspread in a way that made Sam's stomach churn. He swallowed hard and concentrated on putting Dean's pack back together. Batteries, socks, clean shirts, a pair of jeans, a leather toilette bag, cellphone charger, a map, his journal, a book that Bobby had lent him, a deck of cards, a trick hand buzzer toy that Sam thought was a bit of a macabre memento, and a small kaleidoscope that Sam had never seen before. It was no cheap plastic thing with a many faceted jeweled end from a quarter machine at the grocery store, but a true two-part cardboard kaleidoscope covered with a pattern of small stars. The end-piece was filled with translucent beads and sequins and had a yellowing piece of transparent tape over a jagged hole. It surprised Sam, but made him smile. Dean was alive. And Dean was still a mystery with answers to questions that Sam hadn't thought or known to ask yet.

The last time he had gone through the contents of Dean's pack Dean had been in Hell. It was only after he and Bobby had buried him, after they had gotten blind drunk together, sobered up (unwillinging) and went their separate ways, after Sam had placed Dean's bags in the passenger seat to try to fill the empty space and drove with this right hand resting on his brother's packs for weeks that he thought about opening them. Two bags. How could an entire life fit into two bags? Sam had continued to get rooms with two beds, setting Dean's bags on the one closest to the door. It wasn't until Sam let himself forget to stock up on suturing kits and pain meds that he had an excuse to dump Dean's pack out when he returned from a hunt in need of both.

Afterwards Sam had slowly, carefully sifted through the strewn items and laid them out as if it were a museum collection. He half-expected Dean would burst through the door with a "Hey! Get out of my stuff!" and cuff him one. Sam found items he'd thought lost to Time and Travel shoved into socks, pockets, a tin, and between pages of Dean's journal. There was a penny Dean found the day Sam graduated junior high taped to a slowly fraying blue and gold tassel from Sam's highschool graduation, the marble Sam found in a motel room when he was nine, a stash of their report cards from elementary and middle school, the torn label from a bottle of wine, a couple of faded school photos, a deck of cards, the remains of a braided leather bracelet Sam had made him and that had been worn through and lost on a hunt (according to Dean), a hex bag, and an acceptance letter addressed to Dean from Ohio State University nestled next to Sam's from Stanford.

Sam had stared at Dean's belongings trying to decide whether to burn it all or bury it. Instead, he pulled out a needle and thread and patched the bag before meticulously putting it back exactly as he'd found it.

That was the night Sam had tried to make a deal for the third time and was denied for a third time. In the silence between the final denial and the demon's disappearance Sam almost expected to hear a rooster crowing to make it complete. He had laughed humorously to himself because it was marginally better than sobbing. It was also the night that Ruby found him, the night that Sam had never been able to tell Dean about.

Now, over a year later, Sam tossed all of it into Dean's bag with forced irreverance because it was expected. He kept the kaleidoscope out, though, partly for something for his hands to play with and partly to distract himself from the past. He sat on the bed, leaned against the headboard, and looked through the kaleidoscope to see the colored patterns in the sliver of light.

A thud awoke him. Dean opened his eyes to darkness, started, then relaxed when he heard Sam's soft snoring. Most mornings began with a version of a panic attack while between sleeping and waking. In his sleep he was usually still in Hell, reliving his torments as if they were new. Even a year later with the nightmares slowly loosening their hold on him he often wondered if he would wake to be in Hell again, worried it was all just a new torture to tear him open when he realized he had lost everything, again, or worse, that he had never had it back. It didn't exactly help that as the nightmares of Hell slowly eased they were being replaced by imaginings of Hell on Earth if he and Sammy failed, if he failed Sam again.

Having found his equilibrium in Sam's snores, Dean searched for what had awoken him. His gaze landed on the second bed where his giant little brother lay with one leg off of the bed, his own pack laying near Sasquatch's leg where it must have been kicked off. It looked like Sam was holding something, but it could wait.

Getting up was harder than he expected, even given his memories of the previous night's entertainment. In the bathroom mirror he studied himself and what could only be Sam's handiwork. The stitches over his right eye, a bandaged hand that made morning maintenance difficult, the cut shirt sleeve with a bandage. He grimaced against the familiar soreness of bruised ribs. Next time Sam got to be the distraction and he would do the digging.

As he finished washing up as best as he could one-armed, the light in the main room clicked on. He counted. One. Two.

"Dean?"

"In the bathroom, Sammy."

"You okay in there?"

Dean smirked as he replied. "Nope. Fell in. You'll have to come pull me out."

"Jerk!" Sam's reply was punctuated by pounding on the door. "Hurry up! I gotta take a leak."

"Little bitches who need to use the potty should ask nicely." Dean enjoyed the banter so much he almost forgot about the injuries, reveling in being alive and being together, to slowly becoming a team again.

"Deean." Sam whined, or maybe cursed, but Dean saw a seven year old Sammy whining in his mind and chuckled. "Dean, I need to take a leak and then look at your stitches. Stop screwin' around."

"They're fine, Sam. Quit yer whinin'. I'm fine." Dean pushed the door open as fast and hard as possible, smacking into Sam. He sauntered out. "All yours now, Sammy." Sam just glared.

A quick search through his pack yielded some clean clothing. Sam rejoined him in time to tease him about having difficulty dressing one-armed. Sam would pay for it later. Dean saw extra onions in his future and continued to plot as the two of them packed.

"Dean?" Sam's hesitant, pleading voice—the one his little brother always pulled out when he really wanted to know something personal—halted his scheming.

"Yeah Sam?"

"Why do you have a kaleidoscope?"

Dean's eyes snapped up and locked onto the toy that Sam held out to him. For a moment the world stopped. All Dean could see were the colors and the patterns and feel the warm grass beneath him and hear his mother asking what he saw. He remembered being very, very careful as he held it up to his mother's eye so the pattern wouldn't change, and he remembered Baby Sammy reaching for it. Mere weeks before the fire.

"Dean?"

"Where did you get that?" He hadn't seen it in years. He'd hidden it away.

Sam looked at him incredulously. "Your pack. I dumped it out to get the med kit. I noticed it when I put it all back."

Dean debated. Part of him wanted to share and part of him wanted the memory for himself. But Sam had also pulled out the puppy-dog eyes and he had never been able to deny his brother anything for that long. He reached out and took the offered kaleidooscope. It felt good to hold it again, noting how small it felt now. He turned it to look at the yellowing tape that held the jewels in.

"Mom gave it to me."

Sam's eyes met his for a moment. "She let me play with it outside in the backyard. She would hold you while I turned and turned it. She always wanted to know what I saw, so I would show her."

"How did it survive the fire?"

Dean shifted and looked down at the kaleidoscope. "I carried it out with you. It was in the pocket of my pajamas."

"Why was it there?"

Dean smiled. "I had fallen asleep with it."

Sam snorted, then fell silent when he saw the look in Dean's eyes.

"Mom gave it to me after she and dad brought you home. She would say that life is beautiful, just like the jewels. And that sometimes all it takes to right the world is to change how you see the patterns, to look at things differently. I didn't really understand it at the time. After Mom died I carried it around for months. When dad started hunting and leaving us in the car I would play with it, trying to get you to see the jewel patterns to keep you occupied."

"I don't remember it."

Dean breathed deeply. "Because Dad broke it. He came back after a hunt and started drinking. I tried to make him feel better. Told him things would be okay. I gave him the kaleidoscope and told him to look at the world in a different way just like Mom did." Dean ran a hand over his face. "He threw it at the wall. It broke and the jewels flew everywhere. You started to cry. After I had finally calmed you down and you'd both fallen asleep I picked up all of the little jewels I could find and kept them in a sock."

"Sooooo….what? You saved the pieces to throw away later?"

A bright smile broke out on the older hunter's face. He'd just figured out how the kaleidoscope had gotten in his pack. "Bobby fixed it for me the next time we stayed with him. He'd seen me carrying it around and I don't think he believed my story of how I broke it, but he helped me anyway. I hid it in the bottom right drawer of his desk where he threw news articles and other used research because he never actually _used_ the desk, he was too unorganized to do so." Dean shook his head. "I'd almost forgotten about it. Bobby must have found it when we helped him clean out and organize the first floor."

Bobby's gesture warmed Dean to the core. If Bobby could remember the importance of a kaleidoscope even in the face of Jo and Ellen's deaths and the abandonment of all Hope, then maybe Hope still existed. Maybe they could still shift their way of thinking and turn the world sideways to see the beautiful patterns of a world worth saving, and way to do it.

"C'mon, let's get out of here. We've got work to do."


End file.
